Are you a small voluntary organisation? Do you work with small providers? Are you thinking about the hard times ahead? Are you worried that The Big Society will be delivered by The Big Voluntary Sector?

The policy and funding environment in which support services are delivered to vulnerable people is changing. The new government has stated that it wishes to see voluntary groups play an increasing role in the delivery of services for vulnerable people. And it is likely to further devolve policy and funding decisions to local level.

The focus on community-based action as a way of delivering the vision of The Big Society, comes at a time when community-based voluntary organisations face threats from both severe cuts in public expenditure and trends in commissioning and procurement practice which jeopardise their ability to respond and – in some cases – to survive. Increasingly, contracts have been bundled up and redistributed to a relatively small number of large providers.

Find out more about Collaborate 1: sustaining diversity through collaborative tendering. Download the worksheets and read the executive summary of the evaluation report.

Find out more about Collaborate 2: sustaining diversity through clustering. Visit our Collaborate 2 microsite, download the worksheets and read the executive summary of the evaluation report.